Programmable fusion of liposomes mediated by lipidated PNA.

We recently reported a DNA-programmed fusion cascade enabling the use of liposomes as nanoreactors for compartmentalized chemical reactions. This communication reports an alternative and robust strategy based on lipidated peptide nucleic acids (LiPs). LiPs enabled fusion of liposomes with remarkable 31% efficiency at 50 °C with low leakage (5%).

Efficient liposome fusion mediated by lipid-nucleic acid conjugates.

The fusion of biomembranes with release of encapsulated content in a controlled way is crucial for cell signaling, endo- and exocytosis and intracellular trafficking. Programmable fusion of liposomes and an efficient mixing of their contents have the potential to enable the study of chemical and enzymatic processes in a confined environment and under crowded conditions outside biological systems. We report on DNA-controlled fusion of lipid bilayer membranes using lipid-nucleic acid conjugates (LiNAs) to mediate lipid and content mixing of liposomes. Screening of different membrane anchor and linker structures as well as incubation temperatures led to significantly improved fusion and content mixing compared to reported systems. LiNA designs were optimized by changing lipophilic moieties as membrane anchors, PEG-spacer patterns and by introducing locked nucleic acid (LNA) modifications. Liposome fusion induced by complementary LiNAs results in remarkable efficient content mixing at 37 °C and 50 °C (up to 70%) with low leakage (≤5%).

Stable vesicles composed of monocarboxylic or dicarboxylic fatty acids and trimethylammonium amphiphiles.

The self-assembly of cationic and anionic amphiphile mixtures into vesicles in aqueous media was studied using two different systems: (i) decanoic acid and trimethyldecylammonium bromide and (ii) hexadecanedioic acid (a simple bola-amphiphile) and trimethyldecylammonium bromide. The resulting vesicles with varying amphiphile ratios were characterized using parameters such as the critical vesicle concentration, pH sensitivity, and encapsulation efficiency. We also produced and observed giant vesicles from these mixtures using the electroformation method and confocal microscopy. The mixed catanionic vesicles were shown to be more stable than those formed by pure fatty acids. Those containing bola-amphiphile even showed the encapsulation of a small hydrophilic solute (8-hydroxypyrene-1,3,6-trisulfonic-acid), suggesting a denser packing of the amphiphiles. Compression and kinetics analysis of monolayers composed of these amphiphiles mixtures at the air/water interface suggests that the stabilization of the structures can be attributed to two main interactions between headgroups, predominantly the formation of hydrogen bonds between protonated and deprotonated acids and the additional electrostatic interactions between ammonium and acid headgroups.